Just Because You Think You Deserve It Doesn't Make It Hurt Less
by Namekiansgottalovethem
Summary: Summary: Gohan's in trouble, things aren't as they seem, and what they all saw on the outside of his cold exterior could barely hide the turmoil underneath. Piccolo, being too close to the young man, doesn't catch the changes in his friend until it's too late...or is it? This fic is for a friend. If you can't handle this pairing or adult content don't freaking read!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: ****I don't own DBZ. Oh...the havoc I could be reeking if I did! Mwahahahaha!**

**Summary: **Gohan's in trouble, things aren't as they seem, and what they all saw on the outside of his cold exterior could barely hide the turmoil underneath. Piccolo, being too close to the young man, doesn't catch the changes in his friend until it's too late...or is it? This is a gift for a friend. I find this pairing a little much, but ima gonna write dis with no less skill than my others.

**A/N:**This ones for you, Lizzy, you crazy gal...

_…**... .O...**_fic time...

**Just Because You Think You Deserve it Doesn't Make it Hurt Less**

___..Even in your lowest hour, the hurt seeming endless, and everyone has gone on without you..._

The cloudiness of the sky promised all the aspects of a dim day. A vast nebulous stretched contentedly across the forest valley, casting gray shadows that painted the world darker shades of every natural color. A powerful gust pushed steadily against the gray thickness of the thunderhead. The wind aided the clouds, and together they swiftly changed the face of the Earth. A proud, lone figure watched silently the progression of the predicted storm headed his way. He watched through ebony eyes, too dark in their depths to show the reflection of the elements, which continued their intricate dance, apparently unaware of their audience of one solemn spectator.

This man, despite being born into this world, was alien. In appearance and spirit Piccolo was a stranger to the beautiful world in which he lived. Not that mother earth didn't accept him as one of her children; for he was one of her most gentle souls. It was the countless others living under the same atmosphere that felt oddly about him. Even so, mother earth's other children treated Piccolo well enough. It's not like he didn't have a direct hand in saving them time and time again. While some people granted him reserved respect others would stare, slack mouthed, in awe. A vast number openly sneered and pointed, outwardly stating their disgust. And a precious few considered themselves his friends.

He was alien, a Namekian by race, an Earthling by birth, and the Demon King by blood. He was a stranger in anything and to everyone. Everyone...except Gohan.

Thoughts of the kid drew him away from the spectacle in the sky. Memories breached the floodgates and drowned any chance of Piccolo steering clear of his one and only weakness. Gohan. The hardened warrior became overwhelmed as an onslaught of feelings and sensations the boy had left on his senses slammed into him. An image of the fourteen year old smiling, as only Gohan could, appeared behind Piccolo's closed eyelids. An echo of the half Saiyan's happy laughter, safely stored by the Namek's clever brain, revisited pointed ears. Emerald skin rose with goosebumps where Gohan's hands had gripped to pull the somber man into a friendly hug that last time they'd been together alone. Piccolo's olfactory sensors filled themselves with his mind's memorization of the kid's scent and left no room for any other aroma. He shuddered. The last of the five senses decided that now was the precise time to torment him. It came back to him...that memory of that one time...when Gohan had been injured...and he had been so close. The taste- No!

Piccolo shut it all down before it could become too much to handle. He refused to remember that moment when he had harbored an ulterior motive while cleaning blood from the corners of a beaten Gohan's cracked lips. The boy hadn't thought much of it. Piccolo's saliva was a powerful poultice after all, and the boy was bleeding. Gohan never suspected a thing even after the involuntarily shiver overtook his green friend. Gohan had gasped at the refreshing coolness that was healing his split lips and it didn't bother him that Piccolo's lavender tongue lingered a little too long...ugh...

It mattered not that Piccolo was truly trying to forget that and let it go. This would plague him till the day the odds were against him and the Earth's destruction was out of his control. Piccolo sighed as he turned his back on the roiling thunder clouds and began the five minute stroll home. His small concealed cave wasn't luxurious by any standards, but it was warm and cozy, suiting him well. The withdrawn Namek could survive on the barest of means and has done so. With only water and the occasional fire to light his homemade hearth, Piccolo lived hermit style. This way he wouldn't be bothered by pestering humans and could meditate in peace.

As Piccolo walked along his well trodden path to his home, unbidden flickers and flashes made up purely of Gohan drifted through Piccolo's mental facilities...Hadn't he already said ugh once today? The stubborn soldier shook his head in an attempt to jog the forbidden desires via force from his mind. It almost worked. That is until the real deal was flying toward him.

Piccolo felt the boy's Ki before he had a visual. He knew that energy signal like the curves of his antenna. Sure enough twelve seconds later, yes he counted, Gohan was in sight and flying so fast that Piccolo could see the air split apart and try and mend itself behind him. Gray-blue wisps of thin condensation streamed in the refuse of his wake. Why the need for such speed? Pondering why would only be a waste of time when Piccolo could simply ask his young friend. He started to reach out with his own bright Ki to signal, like a flare, his presence to the teen. Abruptly, Gohan changed directions, and passed right by the Namek's cave. Odd. Piccolo dropped his Ki down to nothing.

Now this son of a split personality was not by nature a particularly curious creature...at least sometimes. Maybe if it had been another he would never have followed, but this was Gohan and his former pupil was obviously in distress. The painfully strong emotions were slipping threw the half Saiyan's fluctuating Ki. Usually when Gohan was this way, he came to his best friend and teacher for advise and a good pick-me-up-spar. Not today apparently.

Believing that this might be too personal or embarrassing a thing for Gohan to want to confide in him, Piccolo took a step back to consider how to proceed. Gohan didn't want to alert Piccolo to his whereabouts as he was trying vainly to hide his energy signature. He was suffering enough for his power level to be unstable. Piccolo couldn't turn his back on the boy in his hour of need. Whether he wanted it or not, Gohan would be comforted and Piccolo decided to handle this stealthily.

Remaining on foot, Piccolo weaved in and out of the tall pines, quickly yet quietly making his way towards his friend. In an attempt to keep his white cape from snagging on any branches, Piccolo tucked the back of it under his belt as he stepped lightly and with the grace only a Namek could muster. He had only been stalking for a minute when Gohan's Ki vanished.___"Smart boy,"_ Piccolo thought, smirking slyly___, "But it's too late for that kid. You gave me too much time to home in and lock onto your Ki. Better luck next time cuz that was damn sloppy."_ Something was seriously wrong for the adolescent to screw up like this. Gohan was the strongest fighter this world has ever known and far more competent with his technique than most. The way he was acting though, he might as well been a hopeless rookie. Piccolo felt a dreadful apprehension in the works.

He was getting close. What was that? Piccolo stopped and his ears twitched in unison. Quiet sobs. No, no, no...that couldn't be! He rushed his pursuit of the boy's sorrowful sounds and in mere seconds the diligent warrior came to a small clearing that broke the random pattern of trees. When he could barely make out Gohan's slouched form through the brush, Piccolo took advantage of a low hanging branch and scrambled up onto a concealed limb of a redwood tree. He had a perfect view of every angle in the clearing...Let the snooping commence.

…**... .O...**

Gohan fought within himself. The battle was for his sanity.

___"I am fine. I can get through this. They're just dreams because he's dead. I killed him. I watched and felt it as his every molecule disintegrated and became no more. I killed him and what he says are all lies," _Gohan thought, in an effort to steady himself.

_"Just because they're dreams doesn't make them any less real. Your silly whi__ms don't negate the truth in what he says." _a second voice tried to convince him_._

___ "You're a liar! You lie and you are wrong!"_ Gohan sounded frantic and desperate to prove the other wrong.

___ "Oh, I beg to differ, I'm so right that I can feel you doubting every lovingly spoken word and every act of kindness the people you care for most have ever given you!"_ the cold contempt behind these words were enough to make Gohan whimper.

___"N-no...they love m-me."_

___ "Child, you truly are pathetic to cling to such a ridiculous notion. They've been avoiding you for far too long to still care. Can't you see? You deserve everything he does to you!"_

Gohan was thinking so loudly and carelessly that Piccolo didn't have to strain to hear everything he was thinking. And what he heard made him wary. Piccolo became saddened as he tracked the location of the owner of the voices. The kid sounded so unlike himself that it scared the Namek. There at the foot of a wide cedar tree the boy sat, legs sprawled in separate directions out in front of him. His head was bowed and his long black locks hid his face. If Piccolo could have seen Gohan's haggard expression he wouldn't have been able to remain in the tree.

Gohan was so pale it put shame to freshly lain snow. The purple shadows residing under his exhausted eyes rivaled the pastiness of his cheeks for first place in the "worst color to be seen on a living being" contest. The big droplets of salty water that spilled freely down his face, however, did not go unnoticed. "Oh, kid," Piccolo whispered, "What's wrong boy?" As if Gohan had heard him the voices started up again.

___"Your sick, you know that? Sick!"_ the condescending voice sneered___, "And they know it too. How could they not?"_

Piccolo could see with the use of their mind link that Gohan was remembering things. Remembering his family and friends around him, staring at Gohan strangely. Half of them trying to make up their minds about there being something wrong with him. The other half looked confused, eyes brimming with sympathy and pity. Sympathy for what? That Gohan felt lost and alone without his father? The same father who had abandoned him after the death of Cell. That the boy was the victim of night terrors that had started weeks ago? Or could it be the fact that he talked to himself in public unknowingly that caused them to look at Gohan this way? Pity for what? For his mother, who cried and complained that her baby wasn't innocent anymore? Or was the pity for what Gohan had become? Maybe they could tell...tell that he was loosing the meager grip he had left on reality.

___"No, I am getting better. I have to stay strong for mom, for Earth. I won't allow myself to be weak! Piccolo taught me better than that." _Gohan said, defying the harsh words of the other.

___"Hahahahah...oh...Gohan.."_ the second voice of Gohan sent Piccolos spine crawling for high ground, ___"But you are weak and sick. Little by little you struggle less and less every time it happens now. I think that dirty body of yours likes it. Likes the way it hurts-"_

___ "SHUT UP! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"_

___ "Fine. For now I go. But deep down you know you can't wait for the next time...you long for it...when your alone with him."_

Gohan screamed and clawed at his head. "No!...no I-I.." he cried. The tears burned scalding paths down malnourished skin. His thin shoulders shook and sobbing, he pulled his knees tightly to his chest. "It's not t-true! I'm a good person."

The gaper in the tree was clutching at the trunk's bark, his sharp nails digging into the plants exterior as he gave it all his physical strength to not make a sound. Piccolo didn't understand it, he couldn't and he had no wish to. What he assumed it was made him want to blast a hole through the forest in a rage. But he had to abide just a little longer and gather as much intell as he could get tobe a better help for Gohan. Dark theories owned the majority of his thoughts as he tried to make some sense of what he was seeing and heard. Then his attention snapped back to his former student at the sound of the boy getting up.

Crying hard, Gohan stumbled around the clearing in circles, not getting anywhere. After a time his legs gave way to the heavy insistence of gravity and he fell on all fours to the ground. He began to cough, cutting off his sounds of misery and when the fit finally settled he drew in deep ragged breaths. Then he was still.

Piccolo held the oxygen he'd inhaled in his lungs, too unsure to move even the smallest muscle in his body. He wanted nothing more than ever to launch himself at Gohan and pull him into his comforting embrace. But the part of his mind still functioning properly reminded him that the boy would be devastated and crushed if he knew Piccolo had seen him in such a sorry state.

Gohan crawled slowly over to a flat medium sized rock and laid his torso over it with his back to Piccolo. Then, even as worn as he was, the kid began to speak inwardly again, minus the evil one.

___"It did hurt...it still does. I don't want to like it...he makes me...I...it feels so..."_ he seemed to fight himself internally for a bit as his head jerked from side to side in denial. Then, his resistance crumbled under self pressure and he slid down the small boulder. The crying began anew, only this time his tears were those of shame. Gohan bit the knuckles of his right hand causing little droplets of crimson to pool in the indents made by his canines. ___"This is the last time. I swear. Then never again."_

Piccolo was twice as confused as he had been before. What fowl beast had eaten his Gohan and spat out this broken boy? Answers eluded him. He hadn't noticed any of these changes in the past few weeks and he believed it was his fault that Gohan was in this sad condition. Piccolo bitterly blamed himself for his dear friend's pain and self loathing. What could possibly have happened to him to make him...like this? What had...what-w-what..WHAT WAS HE DOING?!

Piccolo almost choked on his tongue. Gohan had kicked off his purple bottoms. Now with lower body bare, Gohan bit his lip and and a small sound escaped through his clentched teeth. This noise was foreign to the Namek and it made him uneasy.

A trembling hand reached down between creamy legs...

…**... .O...**

A/N: yupo...dere it is...reviews?..want more?


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: ****Do I have to say it? "Yes," whisper the voices, "You have to or there may be unpleasant consequences." FINE! IdonotownDBZoranyofit'scharactersorplotsorsceneriesor- "Silence!" they screech, "Everyone gets it. They know you don't hold claim on DBZ." Do they now? Well, do you?...Good!**

**A/N: **And now I present to you, for your entertainment, the next update.

**WARNINGS:**In this chapter there is some pretty serious stuff, as in...adult audience only stuff! If you can not handle the following: self-harm/self-pleasuring, demonic inner demons, and dark themes. Do. Not. Freaking. Read! Cuz I swear, if you try and flame me for what you already knew was in this I will only respond with a more elaborate version of, "Can you not read? I wrote you a warning, you crazy freak! Your the creeper if you actually read it!" Okay? So just don't do it.

**9 . . 8 . . 7 . . 6 . . 5 . . 4 . . 3 . . 2 . . 1... **the chapter starts here

**Just Because You Think You deserve It Doesn't Make It Hurt Less **

**Chapter 2**

Piccolo felt as if he were flying just outside the sun's atmosphere, his face burned with such fire that he wondered why it didn't melt right off. His heart pounded against his sternum and ribs with pained frantic beats, and assailed his psychological health with raging emotions. Black clawed hands slipped against rough bark from their profuse sweating as they strove to keep their master grounded in his perch up high. Piccolo's shrunken irises danced in shock behind a glazing layer of wetness. He observed, frozen, as the boy below carried on with his more than questionable behavior.

Gohan did not breathe as he watched his own hand snake down, down, down, passing his sex right on by and coming to rest on his pale inner thigh. The hand never made another move for a whole of five minutes as Gohan fought himself.

___'This is wrong,'_ he thought.

His fingers twitched.

___'I don't need this. I can-...'_

Gohan's hand slid slowly down the soft whiteness.

___'Kami, help me!'_

Gohan leaned back against the boulder and scooted his bare bottom up, his legs spreading wide for the searching fingers. His breath came in shallow gasps and he let out a small whimper when his fingers found their hidden goal. Gohan's shoulders began to shake as an overwhelming surge of guilt rushed to meet him and his eyes gushed their sorrow.

Gohan turned his head away so he wouldn't have to see, ___'I really am ____**sick**____.'_

Gohan gave himself no preparation. He didn't stop to think twice. He didn't care any more. Without a sound, only the silent splashes of his pain bearing tears on the soft earth floor, Gohan roughly pushed two fingers inside.

Piccolo's mind went blank, and his world spun as his boy's once brilliantly pure Ki withered into nothingness. His ears received not a noise, everything having been drown out by the sound of his heart pulsing in his head. The rest of the world outside and beyond the clearing mattered next to nothing at the moment.

All of Piccolo's life he had undergone many trials. Although every one of them had flipped his world every which way not one had seized his very soul in a death grip and squeezed till he knew no feeling other than pain. Till now, and it gave him cause to despair, a frightening and all consuming emotion he had yet to experience. And now he was. How lucky Piccolo had been every day he had lived before this one. How fortunate and blessed was he, to have been sheltered from this horrendous -**thing!**- that brought about such a numbness of one's being.

___**Gohan**__..._

The cruel digits twisted and curled sharply, scraping and bloodying the boy's insides. Plump human lips parted, opening his mouth wide. Agonized screams cleared his throat only to cling to his tongue, never to leave his mouth. Never voicing themselves. Saliva spilled out Gohan's tortured mouth and over his lower lip to drip off his chin. It was grotesquely obscene.

Gohan fucked himself, thrusting his fingers violently into his bleeding hole, only to curl and rip them back out. This self-rending action was repeated again and again and again.

He drove the abrading digits in the deepest yet, digging into that secret spot within himself. Gohan saw white and his body seized for a total of six pain blinding, time stopping, everlasting seconds. Finally the pent up screams were forced out, piercing the air along with Piccolo's stilled heart.

Gohan's mind shrieked and cried out. Piccolo heard all.

___'It-it burns- IT HURTS!...ah! Aah! AAAAH!'_ Gohan's body convulsed but, unrelenting, the malicious fingers plowed on.

___'See?! You like it, you little freak!"_ (two guesses who)

Gohan writhed and jerked, his head thrashing side to side, ___'No! N-no! I-Ah!-I j-just want to feel real! I n-need to feel real!'_

___'Does he really do this to your perverted body? Make you act this way? Arouse you so much?'_

___'N-never!'_

___'Then why do I get the feeling that you're wishing it was someone else fucking you right now?'_

___'Not him-ungh! ____**AAAH!**____'_ Gohan's back flew up off the ground, his heels digging divots into the dirt floor_._

___'If not him then who would you have? Not a single one could love you now. No one cares.' _

The boy finally broke and the most anguished howl filled the grove, tainting it, driving all the life and serenity from the surrounding forest.

This shattered boy...Gohan...___**Piccolo's**_, Gohan...no..

The Namek couldn't take it any more. He had seen and heard enough! Willing-forcing- his body to move he was there by Gohan's side in the blink of an eye.

"Gohan." Piccolo whispered, unable to make his voice any louder as it wasn't functioning properly. He expected just about anything at this point, but the sight before him...standing this close to...everything in his little Namekian world stopped turning. He tried to reach out to his smaller friend, his arms dead at his sides, refusing his every command to sweep up Gohan and cradle him to his chest. His throat was scorching hot and his words of comfort dwindle and died, melted from the heat. Piccolo stood unmoving, trying with his great might to shake off his petrification and take action.

Gohan was delirious, his pain glazed eyes drifted over Piccolo's still form only by chance. At first he saw nothing, just a tall blurred shape. Slowly comprehension dawned on him and his tear weary eyes widened in shock. Piccolo was right there...standing right in front of him.

He did not care.

Gohan squeezed his eyes shut tightly and bucked his hips downward to meet the harsh thrusts of his hand.

He screamed.

The young man's whole body shuddered and convulsed. Then, like flicking an on/off switch, abruptly shut down. Left at Piccolo's feet was an unconscious, crimson oozing, and no longer innocent Gohan.

Piccolo choked, growled, spat, and sobbed, his own streams of grief flowing from his pooling obsidian eyes, "Oh...Gohan. What's happened to you?"

…**... **o O XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX O o **…**...

The glow of the fire danced with the shadows of Gohan's sleeping face. It was nighttime back at Piccolo's cave and Gohan had yet to recover from the afternoons horrific ordeal. The big guy was starting to grow anxious, his infamous resolve crumbling around his foundation's edges. An ever looming worry began to hack at his patience. It felt like something should have happened by now.

There was nothing he could do but watch and allow his troubled mind to wander along complicated paths of inquisition. His eyes kept Gohan's sleeping form within their peripheral vision because staring head on at the boy's condition was unbearable. And thinking? The thinking consisted of mostly dark thoughts. That second voice of Gohan's...it needed to die a slow agonizing death, but if that happened it would mean harming the first and still dominant Gohan. The boy had almost lost it to the evil one, it was so close a battle. Then he had seen Piccolo and seemed to pull through the harsh ending of his climax.

The Namek was certain that the sweet young teen he knew was still, if just barely, in control and that he's only stayed so this long was by doing...what he'd done today to himself in the clearing. More tears, damn them, unbidden, but not scorned rolled off his emerald cheek bones. How could he have been so blind to Gohan's declining health? Piccolo growled, a deep yet shrill sound. He knew why. Sometimes he retracted so far into himself that he remained in a constant state of aware meditation. The Namek had found this necessary, to control certain..feelings..for a certain someone not two feet away from him. It was no excuse.

___'You!'_ Piccolo accused himself,___ 'You know him better than anyone else and you ignored the signs. You never acknowledged how his eyes grew dull and you could no longer see your reflection in their shining brilliance. How he seemed so torn when it was time to leave and he had to let your hand go.'_

Yes, he should have known, and although Piccolo couldn't change the past he was here now and he had no intention of going anywhere. He would stay by his dear friend until he was healed. In more ways than one.

There was a pained groan and the sudden sound snapped the ponderer back to the warm cave and awakening boy. Piccolo was up in a second and by Gohan's side. Weary swollen eyes opened and regarded the warrior.

"Hold me, please." the pure request was quickly taken to heart.

Piccolo handled Gohan carefully, lifting the teen gently onto his lap. He whimpered when Piccolo shifted his legs to lie over Piccolo's crossed ones. Supporting the boy's head with one hand Piccolo used the other to stroke and run long fingers through his smaller companion's black tresses. He would forever deny it, but the burly warrior found himself rocking Gohan and cooing softly, whispering assurances into his pink ear.

"I've got you Gohan. I'm here." Piccolo whispered.

They stayed this way for a long time though Piccolo suspected it would never be enough. At any moment some unknown entity could rip his little friend away from him and he'd be gone forever. It didn't have to be a great villain like they'd faced before. It could very well be that haunting thing Gohan kept deep inside, hidden away from everyone but himself. How ironic it seemed for the Earth's most powerful fighter, who had endured evil, the supernatural, and the scaring cruelties of other worlds, to lose it all to the demon within. Piccolo cut his musings short. They were too depressing, possible, real.

Gohan stirred minutely, a light gasp escaped him, and his boyish features twisted into a leering smile, "Your right you know. I could take him away."

Piccolo didn't miss a beat, "That mental mind-screwy shit doesn't get to me, you filthy creature. I was born King of that."

It sneered.

Piccolo rolled his eyes and grinned back, "Now listen to me you little prick." A menacing clawed hand gripped it's borrowed throat, "The day that happens you die. He doesn't exist," the cold fingers squeezed slightly, "neither do you. Capeash?"

It's eyes took on a terrified look for a few clear seconds only to switch to an angry gleam.

"The whole time I am confined here I will haunt him with dreams of feeling. I will bleed out the miniscule store of self esteem he has painstakingly preserved like a leech." The voice almost sounded cheery, as if conversing with an old friend. "As you can already perceive I am matchless in this capacity. Your precious Gohan can no longer distinguish illusions from reality. Poor guy wasn't even sure you were actually there when you made your surprise entrance during his little...show."

The normally composed Namek erupted with a ear-boxing snarl.

The demonic creature took delight in Piccolo's outburst, "I bet that new side of him disgusts you. He's so sure it will. Desperate thing, he means no true harm by it; only craves to feel something -anything- to grant him the impression he's still alive. Of course it may be my fault...what happens to your Gohan in my hell-spun nightmares might have influenced his new habit. So sorry old ch-uurgl!"

Piccolo almost didn't quit in time. It was the return of his Gohan that shocked him into letting go of his death grip around the boy's slender throat. Gohan coughed and wheezed, struggling to suck in life-preserving oxygen. Piccolo felt instant remorse as he stared horror struck at the teen's red neck. It would bruise...deeply.

"Gods! I'm sorry Gohan! I'm so sorry!"

…**... **o O XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX O o **…**...

Gohan blinked and shielded his eyes from the firelight. It was strange, the orange flickering glow. The forsaken place of his dreams was always shrouded in perpetual darkness, almost like he was lost in a inky black reality designed to be his undoing. But it was not so here. There was light. The all encompassing warmth was gratifyingly new as well. This place should have been cold, unless...unless he was alone for the time being. Maybe, just maybe, for he didn't dare get his hopes up with wishing, this dream was one fabricated of his own mind's imagining. Could it be, assuming he was in total control of himself, that this mental picture was his own sweet intermission from the wilting chaos that was his life? The green face above him was slowly coming into focus.

"P-Piccolo?" it came out as a croak. Gohan's unsteady hands sought his neck as he felt his throat fail to produce the correct amount of air needed to speak. His touch stung and he drew back. So there was pain here.

"Gohan, I can't tell you how sorry I am! He just wouldn't stop talking and-," Piccolo's voice caught, "...all those disgusting things he's done to you. I wanted to kill him so badly I-...I almost did. I'm so sorry."

Gohan cocked his head to the side in amusement. Piccolo sounded so earnest...how unlike him. Then the unheard words of the Namek started to fight to be understood. The letters arranging into groups, making words. The words alining to create sentences and from there they took meaning, registering in Gohan's addled brain. To his anger and frustration Gohan found that even in his own made up refuge that ___**thing**_ was still interfering. It had conversed with his mentor.

"I see you've talked with him...I-..I never wanted you to ever know about him. I tried to keep him from you, Piccolo. I really did." Gohan said, a little peeved that he couldn't keep his secret in a mere dream.

Then a scary thought visited the boy and Gohan despaired. When the time came to leave this place he would have to face a very real, and most likely furious Piccolo. The distraught teen was not prepared to face his mentor. Hadn't the slightest clue as to how he should explain things to the Namek. Or if Piccolo would even stop to listen and instead kill him before the boy had the chance to fix anything. Gohan almost lost himself to this negative line of thinking until a low grunt reminded him just who's lap he was curled up on. He got an idea. Who better to advise him than this Piccolo holding him so closely in his conjured fantasy?

"Piccolo, I don't know what to do. I think he saw me, the real you that is, and who knows how long he had been standing there. Whats worse is that I-I...Oh, Gods! I kept on...right in front of you!" Gohan turned his head away from the man he admired most to hide his wet guilty eyes. He would rather face Cell ten times more than to allow Piccolo to see his worthless face, dream or not.

He couldn't help that his next words came from quivering lips, "And I didn't care either. Not while it was happening. If I had barely started I still would have finished like the slut I am."

Piccolo sat there in deafening silence. Once again his Namekian heart threatened to rupture and spill out his burdened ears. Gohan would never tell him all this. Oh, no, no, no. The the younger warrior believed this was all a dream, an illusion? Believed that the 'real' Piccolo would never accept him with his faults? Believed that he, Piccolo, would never hold Gohan, apologize for nearly killing him, and cease caring about him after something like this? Piccolo feel the heat of his alien blood being sapped from his still body and replace with a cold emptiness. Was He really like that? A monster? Why wouldn't Gohan look at him? Was he afraid?

"You would kill me if I asked you right? If I begged," Gohan asked quietly. "So I don't have to face him? I-I don't want him to hate me. I couldn't live in a world where he hated me!"

Piccolo no longer felt the emptiness, he could no longer feel anything at all.

"P-please! Please will y-you help m-me?" Gohan was truly broken, crying, sad, and utterly broken. "I kn-know you c-can die...from dreams. No one h-has to know. Please, please, please."

Gohan couldn't hide his face anymore. His shaking hands clutched at Piccolo's purple gi, the skinny fingers losing themselves in the heavy fabric now stained by the half human's sorrow.

"I can't...d-do it any m-more!" The boy sobbed hoarsely, "just...just end m-me Pic-colo p-please."

It took Piccolo not half a second to come to a decision,_ "____**No**__."_

Gohan cried out and his weeping shook him harder. Low animalistic sounds spewed forth from the boy uncontrollably. Like a dying wild cat.

"Wh-why?"

The answer, Piccolo thought, was an obvious no-brainer, "Because I love you."

"If you loved me...y-you wouldn't m-ake me suffer and...l-leave me to live a cursed life alone! I al-alwys had y-you, but now he'll be too disgusted to l-look at me. He'll-"

Gohan's speech was impaired by the sudden crushing of jade lips on his.

"Be silent Gohan," Piccolo growled when he finally let the boy breathe, "It's my turn now."

...TBC...

**A/N: **There it is! Sorry if there are typos. I'll fix um later. It takes me a long while to type and write this so please take a few and review!... :D


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